While I'm Alive
by LunaNotLoony
Summary: One night in Diagon Alley, a curse hits sixteen year old Anna. In that moment, she is given a death sentence. After 2 months, she will inevitably die. This is Anna's struggle to live, love and make a difference... when cold numbers tell her not to bother. Sirius/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1- St Mungos**

The first thing I notice is the metal circle on my chest. It's a cold print against my skin, and it's throbbing. Beating with steady rhythm, drowning out my own heartbeat. That's when I realise my heartbeat and the gentle thuds from the metal circle are perfectly aligned- it's beating my heart.

The second thing I notice is that I'm lying on the least comfortable bed in existence. The mattress is paper thin, knobbly, and simultaneously smells of deodorant and piss. Shouldn't I be lying in my own popcorn-scented bed, which sinks under me as I roll over?

I open my eyes, and try to sit up. Pain erupts through my bones, and I fall back, aching and bruised. I pull the duvet over me, gasping, for excluding surrounding pipes lying across me, I'm half-naked. A blurry figure swarms towards me, pressing me backwards and shoving a piece of bread into my hands. When you wake up in a strange bed, half-naked, what should you do? Eat bread you're given? I do exactly that, and my stomach feels marginally less aching and rattling empty.

'Where am I?' I say with as much dignity as possible. 'And where are my contact lenses?'

They give me two marble-like objects, that probably are just my contacts and not lasers designed to blind me. I still push them into my eyes, hoping that will push the morning into focus.

The blurs become crisp lines. I'm tucked between two mustard yellow sheets. Everything is mustard yellow, perhaps to blend it with vomit marks. There's no carpet, just wooden boards, which aren't yellow, but brown. There's three other beds, in a line, all pressed against the walls, two occupied. The one nearest to me contains a gaunt women with eyes fixed on the mustard yellow ceiling. Above each bed, there are bright paintings of flowers in vases, but the flowers above my bed, although vivid colours, are drooping.

There are four neat plastic tables. One by other's bed have a magazine lying open across them, like she was promising one day she'd finish it, and a picture of a grinning, cheerful family, and a hairbrush. My table is bare, but for a mirror. The mirrors reflects me back without lies. My skin is grey and peeling from my face; my eyes are no longer a splash of sunny blue sky, but tired grey clouds. And slicing my face in two is a scar, cruel red and mangled.

I remember everything in a rush of disgust at my own face. I remember it all, and I know I'll never forget it again.

/

School was over. I was allowed to discard the dust-bound volumes for eight weeks and go wild. This summer is the bridge between childhood and adulthood; I could be party and be wild and free, but without responsibilities and taxes. This summer, time stopped, and we lay on the grass drinking vodka.

If I'd been at my house, my parents would have stopped me leaving the house in the clinging black dress Zebra forced on me. But I was staying with Zebra and each day, we'd meet at James Potter's house with a group of about fifteen others hand-selected by the marauders. I was only part of Zebra's baggage in their invitations, I knew that. It didn't stop me from feeling like I was cool, though, even if only Zebra talked to me. I mooched around, hanging onto the marauder's every word, blushing when Sirius flirted with Zebra.

That day, I let Zebra lead me away, head ducked, to the Hog's Head, and I followed her around all night, sipping orange juice or butterbeer, and wondering, again and again, why anyone would celebrate the moment when they're thrown into the world and this new harsh war.

I'm going back to school into seventh year. I want to hide from everything for as long as you can. I plan to study Arthimancy, Charms, and Care of Magical Creatures. Maybe other subjects, like Defence. A tiny part of me is choosing such limited options because I hope I'll be Head Girl, come next year, and I want to plenty of time to devote to those duties.

Zebra is still pondering. She announced she wanted to fight a long time ago. She was a Muggle-born, and adamant she deserved to belong in this world as much as any patronising pure-blood. In fact, she told me, she belonged here more than those kind, because she understood what a witch or wizard really was: someone with magic. The only reason she hadn't already gone blundering into the world, wand brandished, firing random hexes at death eaters, was because she hoped getting NEWTs would guarantee access to the auror department.

I'll miss Zebra when she gets herself killed. She's my only real friend, and I've spent hours begging her to not get herself involved. I'm painfully aware that you could beat her in a duel, but she refuses to listen. Perhaps I'll be dragged along in Zebra's wake, and end up an auror as well; perhaps, unlikely. Already, I can predict the future too clearly. I will be left behind when Zebra's dies a heroic death, left to understand the pain of war, crying over my best friend's body.

Now, because of Zebra's pleading, I was wandering down Diagon Alley past midnight, surrounded by drunk teenagers whose names you barely know. Sirius Black (you can't avoid knowing _his_ name) was shooting fireworks into the air. Red and gold showered down of you, exploding in our faces.

'Gryffindor colours? Really, Sirius?' Zebra shouted into your ear.

'What about it?' he yelled back. He draws a crude image of the male anatomy in the blackness.

'I was gonna say, fuck red and gold, try badger yellow, but you know what? You can draw as many dicks in those colours as you like!'

'Imagine the poor little six year olds waking up to see your "art",' Remus said, shaking his head. I smile, even though you know the ashes will have faded from the sky by morning.

'Half of them already know what one looks like, and the others secretly want to,' Sirius says, and Zebra laughed. Well, more like a giggle really.

She lunged at him, and next second, they appeared to be trying to swallow each other's tongues. God, I'm never getting drunk.

'Get a room!' someone shouted. They fall against me, as they try to elbow towards Zebra and Sirius.

'Just consider it your own personal porn channel,' James Potter said, surveying the two with distaste. 'Sirius plus the latest random girl.'

This was true enough. While James mooned over Lily Evans, a gorgeous, witty redhead and hopefully corrupted her so it left the path open for me to become Head Girl, Sirius would get with any girl who was willing. Zebra knew sure well she was just "the latest random girl" to Sirius, so she wouldn't get her heart broken, but I'd seen other girls a mess of tears after Sirius discarded them.

I thought that Sirius was hexing James in jest, or perhaps shooting more sparks at him. Normally, magical sparks don't actually burn, but when one gold star touched my cheek, it burnt white hot. I imagined the blazing green light slicing the darkness in two was their playful duel. Something evergreen and smoky was coiling in the sky, and I thought that Sirius had certainly changed his taste in colours.

Then the boy who told them to get a room grabbed my arm and clung to it in a iron vice. Illuminated by the skeletal light, I saw Zebra pull her lips from Sirius'. She is entangled with him, and it was definitely impossible for Sirius to have fired the green light into the air. It spread out, swallowed Sirius' picture from the air, till all the sky is ridden of the velvet black. Nothing but dark green, crowned by a skull with a snake protruding from it's mouth.

There was a silence which rung out with the vibration of silent screams. At the end of the streets, a black silhouette appears, a din of choking, desperate, very real screams coming from them. There's a rainbow of light coming from wands, a beautiful web of curses and death.

'That's the death eaters,' the boy said, as if he was announcing a change in the weather. 'Lucy left us to buy something to eat,' he said, and the iron grip on my arm suddenly went limp as a rag doll.

The death eaters were surrounded by flames licking at houses. They seemed to be a single black unit, marching, marching down our street. You could hear their boots on the pavement.

'For God's sake, _d__isapparate_! RUN!' It was if the panic suddenly became tangible. Somebody crashed past me and ran, bent double, flinging a bag onto the ground. Somebody stepped forward, eyes shut, and suddenly only a bleeding stump of a leg is left, splinched. Screams burned my ears. Someone trips and fell face forward, their wand flying from their hand.

Zebra turned on the stop, stumbling and raising her wand. She walked forward, eyes blazing with drunken courage.

'NO, ZEBRA!'

I yelled.

How ironic, that the only sober person was the first to fall. Maybe if I'd been drunk I'd have ran in the other direction, and then perhaps I would have escaped unharmed.

I saw the curse before it hits me. It was the colour of limes. It flashed across my vision, like a personalised dark mark, before it hit my face. Pain spread so fast. I know nothing but of the knives stabbing at every inch of my skin, white hot pain consuming me. I scream, unable to control myself, then choke blood, sickly and metallic. My bones are to weak to hold me up, and my head hits wet stone.

**Edit: 1) Just corrected a couple of grammar mistakes, but Chapter 2 will be out soon – particularly if people review! I want to say thank you to the two Guests who reviewed, you made my day.**

**2) If anyone wants to beta this, send me a PM!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

'Anna!'

Dazed, I open my eyes. Black curls lined with grey. My heart soars as I smell her shampoo. With sudden energy, I fling myself from the "bed" and wrap my arms around her. I'm six again, clinging to Mum like a small monkey. Her arms are sturdy and safe and if I stay here, breathing in the shampoo, wrapped in warmness, I will grow strong again.

'Oh, darling,' she whispers.

There is the sound of the door creaking open, and I pull away, blushing. The air feels cold again, and I slide backwards under the covers, all my energy drained. A nurse smiles at us, and I avoid her eyes. I'm sixteen, not six, and I feel vaguely ashamed for hugging Mum. It's a submission that I feel as weak as a paper doll.

The nurse smiles and pulls up a chair. She is Asian, with hair in a tight bun. Thick make-up barely disguises the shadows under her eyes, but she's pretty. She slim, perhaps a little too slim, and willowy, and I could imagine her photo is the sort of glossy magazine Leila gets. Now, the smile dims from her eyes, and I see the over-worked nurse behind the make-up, a folder of things to do under her arm.

'You're Ms Goldner-Thompson, I assume?' she says, with a small breathy laugh, cracking open the folder.

'Yeah,' Mum says. 'My husband's on his way with Anna's brother now. Perhaps we could wait till they arrive to go over her medication?

The nurse hesitates, her eyes flicking automatically towards her folder. 'I don't mean to be rude, Ms Goldner-Thompson, but really any other children being present isn't, uh, perfect. Perhaps if we could start now...'

'My daughter has been attacked,' Mum says. 'Am I not allowed a few minutes with her?'

'I'm on a very tight schedule?' She sounds as if she's begging.

'What if I don't see Anna again? I don't want my last moment with her to be filling out forms!'

The nurse hovers on the spot, seemingly about to cry. Clinging to the folder like it was her long lost child, she ducks out of the room, murmuring something about 'just ten minutes.' The door swings shut, then bounces open a little.

I have been the nurses' place. My cheeks are burning at Mum's overpowering emotional attack. She has often berated me into things and I have nodded meekly, but I feel so ashamed of her when I can almost see the nurse thinking she's being ridiculous and over-the-top, and I think it too. I'm also aware that Mum is older than other parents her age, at sixty, that she's dumpy and ugly and overweight, particularly compared to the stylish young nurse.

'Maybe I was little too fierce but it's only reasonable to allow me time with you, Anna,' Mum says. 'Really, all these forms and schedules should be abandoned when every second could matter.'

'Mum,' I say. 'What do you mean what if you don't see me again?'

My voice is quieter than I expected it to, and awfully pathetic. For the second time, I'm feel shame at how young I must seem. The little crumpled girl lying with her Mummy, pale and sweating, connected to a million pipes, with the feeble croaking whisper- she could be a eight year old.

'Anna. Well,' Mum clears her throat and can't meet my eye. Then I know, and I seem to collapse one step further. I try to speak but no words come out. I hate crying, but the tears prick my eyes. We sit in silence for a few minute. Mum reaches for my hand. I pull away as her hand grazes mine, and burrow my head under the covers.

Mum tells me that she'll be there for me, and so will my Dad, and everyone else. At some point during her speech, a dull buzzing fills my ears, drowning everything out. I want her to leave. I need her to leave like I need water to soothe my dry throat, to stop my lips from cracking if I every try to speak. I stink. I am soaking in my old sweat, the heat, the suffocation. Is this how I'll die?

Then the door crashes open. Jim leads the way, blond hair sticking up in every direction. He darts to my bed and looks around, confusion evident in his voice. After him came my Dad, solemn and pale. Behind him, the nurse is still clutching her folder, hovering in the door.

Jim stops abruptly a few paces from my bed, staring at me. I think he's searching for Anna. I don't know where she is either.

'Anna,' Dad says, sitting himself on the edge of my "bed". 'Are you all right?'

I just look at him, and he tries to chuckle. It sounds more like a sob.

'You'll be OK,' he says.

'You will be, I promise,' Mum says.

Jim says nothing, but leans against the furtherest wall. He drops his head and pushes himself further into the wall when he sees me looking at me. My little brother, who eats my sweets and grins toothily as I see the empty box, who made me friends with Zebra by going up to her and showing her my worst ever pictures, who determinedly plays the trombone at 5am on Saturdays, who I hate and love as easily as breathing, is _scared_ of me.

The worst thing is I don't blame him. I see myself in the mirror, my face a mass of dried blood and scars, and know I'd never be able to go near Jim if he looked like me.

'Can we do the medical records stuff now?' I say. The nurse nods curtly, and pulls up four chairs. Mum and Dad sit, and, not daring to look at me, Jim does to.

I try to listen, but concentrating is hard. A constant buzzing fills my ears, and a crushing sense of weakness pins me here. I cannot survive without the metal beating my heart. Pain drills into my head, and within moments, my sight has blurred, despite the contact lenses. I can hear, from far away, the sound of discussion. Pain is swallowing me, drilling into my head, and every limb feels like stone. Tears, sweat, and blood mix on my cheeks.

'I don't want... estimates and numbers... discouraging...'

I latch onto the nurse's voice, hoping her stutter will keep me from falling into the black hole sucking me in, at the speed of light, shredding my body. Soon, no light will be able to escape, and I will be crushed into the blackness.

'She... a right to know... Anna, do you want... a number...'

Now I understand. When will I die? I try to say 'yes', but vomit rising in my throat. I manage to nod, setting my brains off bouncing against the walls of my head.

'We think... just an estimate...'

I can see nothing but darkness, yet somehow the nurse's muffled voice breaks through.

'She has around two months to live.'

This, I realise, is worse than the curse had been. Then it had been a split-second of white hot pain before my bones crumpled. Here, my mouth was filled with bitter-tasting vomit, and each breath burnt my nostrils. My face was soaking wet and sticky, and my insides were being ripped, one by one, with a rough knife. Blood was splashing in my stomach, curdling up.

Two years late, I comprehend the nurses' words. _I am going to die in two months._

Two months of this. The last dregs of hope is washed away. Of course, the nurse is wrong, somehow, she is drastically wrong.

Calmness takes my hand. She is tall and well-built, with black hair combed to one side. Her eyes are as blue as heaven. I stare back at heaven's reflection, and let myself go

**A/N: Sorry, sorry, I used a blackout ending for a chapter, twice in a row. But I promise I won't do this again- well, until the last chapter. Next chapter will see Anna being more like a person, and less like... a person dying. **

**I'm still looking for a beta anyone!**


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